


There's got to be something better out there

by IaMcHrIsSi



Category: Kong: Skull Island (2017)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:27:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24027373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IaMcHrIsSi/pseuds/IaMcHrIsSi
Summary: Mason Weaver, after the island.
Relationships: James Conrad/Mason Weaver
Comments: 7
Kudos: 68





	There's got to be something better out there

**Author's Note:**

> For weeks I've wanted to write a new dark!batfam fic, a PJO thing, a Star Wars May 4th tribute... and I end up writing something for Kong. Go figure. I highly doubt anyone cares, really, but at least it's something to post. That's something.
> 
> Title is from We don't need another hero from Tina Turner, because I adore Tina Turner.

Mason doesn't intend to stick by Conrad, anymore than she intends to join an organization that brought a war to such a beautiful, sacred place as Kong's Island. It just kind of... happens.

They leave the island with the four surviving soldiers, Brooks, Lin, and Marlowe. Conrad is the one who takes command once they reach the ship, telling the crew to get them back to their starting point, right now, and asking for a medic.

Marlowe stares at everyone, happy to be off the island, and Mason thinks she should probably go to him, explain him, or explain the others to him, but she doesn't. Brooks and Lin stare, too, shell shocked as the events of the last few days start to catch up to them.

The soldiers try to joke between themselves, try to look in control, but Mason thinks the fact that every single one of them defers to the very British, very much not currently in the military and therefore not part of any chain of command Conrad says everything they don't.

And Mason? She sticks with Conrad, never leaving his side. She doesn't say much, but she glares when necessary, and when the medic finally arrives, she makes sure he looks over Conrad just as much as her.

During all this, they don't talk to each other, really, but she notices Conrad sticking by her side just as much as she's sticking by his.

* * *

Mason Ann Weaver is born on a stormy night, as her mother likes to tell her, when her father is out fishing with his friends and her mother all alone.

She's not sure whether that's supposed to be a metaphor or a life lesson or just life, sucking as usual, but that's the story she grows up with.

Her father wanted a boy, expected a boy, and never considered there not being a boy, which is how she ends up with the first name Mason. Her middle name is her mom putting her foot down, for once in her life. Mason's not sure whether she should be glad about that, about having at least one parent acknowledge that she's a girl.

* * *

After they are safely back in civilization, after a long debrief and the revelation that Lin and Brooks want to keep searching places like the island, after realizing just how big a problem things like the skull crawlers might prove to be, after an interesting and unexpected job offer...

Mason goes to a bar. It's not a fancy one, and it's not a nice one, it's just a bar. Tons of soldiers and sailors, like she's used to from Vietnam, quite a few of whom look at her like they might want to hook up, but blessedly, they all keep their distance. She doesn't want company, not tonight. Not from them.

Conrad slips into the seat next to her not ten minutes after she arrives. She doesn't ask where he's been. She doesn't ask how he found her.

For a few minutes they just sit there, looking at each other. He's handsome, in a rugged sort of way, the way soldiers often are. But somehow, it doesn't quite register as much as it ought to.

Maybe it's the hell they've been through together. The knowledge of what they've survived, the fact that she knows what her name sounds like screamed desperately from his mouth.

She wants him, she thinks. Wants to take him to some safe place and have his hands all over her, his lips on her skin. But she also wants to sit here with him, share a beer and know, deep down, that he's not going to leave her, and she's not going to leave him, and neither of them will be alone anymore.

Which is stupid. Everyone leaves, that's how life works, and they've not even known each other a week yet. So why does it feel like forever, even before he opens his mouth?

“You going to do it?” He asks, blue eyes never leaving hers.

“Don't know.” She says, taking a sip of her beer. It's awful, but not worse than some of what she had in 'Nam. “You?” She feels like they're playing chicken, somehow, waiting who will be the first to blink.

“Could be interesting.” He says, going for nonchalant and not even missing it by that much. “Not like I've got better things to do.”

“Someone's gotta keep them honest. We don't want another Packard.” His eyes, dark and wild and full of rage, are all that Mason sees for a second. She grips her beer, seeking solace, or a anchor to reality, or whatever poetic thing someone might make up.

“No, we don't.” He says, and that's that.

* * *

Dad wants her to be a tomboy, and so she is. She dresses in pants whenever possible, she goes out to fish and hunt and hike with him, she doesn't own a single pink thing.

She's happy, most of the time, being allowed to be outside and to spend time with her dad. She never wanted dolls, anyway, and playing dress up is just boring. And who wants to spend time with all these chitter chatter girls who never talk about anything important?

It's only years later that she starts to wonder. Where her conversations about the weather and the fish and hunting really that much more important than finding the beauty in things? Was it really her choice, to go into the woods with the intent to kill instead of see?

* * *

The first mission that has both of them as official Monarch personal is a weird one. The soldiers who survived Skull Island were offered a very nice compensation if they came again, but Mason can't fault them for passing. They'd gone to that island with a full unit, twenty men strong, and came back with four. She herself thinks she's crazy for going out again. 

Given the lack of men, they opt for a small mission. Just Conrad and her, checking out some rumors in Nepal. There's a town they're staying in that can be found on maps and doesn't seem to be destroyed by overgrown animals regularly, so it's deemed low risk. 

Find the suspicious cave, take some pictures, bring them back home. Mason takes the photos, Conrad makes sure she's safe. That's the job. 

Lin and Brooks, inofficial heads of Monarch until Washington can organize some new general or something to take the post, have it all sketched out. The travel department organizes them two rooms in an only slightly run down hotel, as well as flights and visa. 

It feels to easy. 

Of course Mason doesn't want to repeat the desaster that was Skull Island, and she dearly hopes that no other mission turns out like that one, but still. It feels like those picture trips to the prettiest sunset that her mother always wanted her to do, where the only thing one had to worry about was getting up early enough. 

Still, when they sit in her room in the evening, nursing warm beers and talking about nothing at all, there's a feeling of excitement in the air. A feeling of foreboding, both positive and negative.

“You think there's anything there?” Conrad asks, staring at her in that way that has her wonder whether someone turned up the heat. They didn't, of course, and she's kind of annoyed at herself for that response. Here's a man who has only ever shown her genuine respect, never once tried to hit on her unduly, and she wants to hit on him instead. 

“Everyone seems to stay away. Villages like this, that's got to have a reason. But from Lin's intel, the cave has a pretty steep drop, so that might just be it. And if it was too bad, the people would have moved. So, probably not.”

“Thing they just want to test our loyalty?” Conrad asks. It's something Mason's wondered, too. 

“If it were anyone else, probably. But Brooks and Lin, they're scientists. Crackpot scientists, too, who spend all their professional lifes working on a theory that before the island, I would have considered something out of a bad science fiction novel. They're not politicians, and they're definitively not spies. I don't think something like a loyalty test would occur to them.” She says, drinking the last of her beer. It's really awful.

“Probably not.” Conrad says, shaking his head. “Paranoia's something I picked up in 'Nam.” He seems far away for a short second, then he forces a smirk.

“'It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you.'” Mason quotes, and gets a real smile out of him. “Just because Brooks and Lin aren't problems, doesn't mean there won't be some dunderhead from DC who will be.”

“Just what we need, some general trying to make a name for himself.” Conrad mumbles, staring at his beer. 

“Hey, you signed on despite not needing to.” She says.

“So did you.” He reminds her. She grins.

“Crazy, the two of us.” 

“Oh, absolutely.” He grins, too.

(They fall asleep in her bed, together, completely platonic despite what part of Mason was hoping for. The next morning, they somehow manage not to make it awkward, and she doesn't mention that it's been the best night of sleep she's had in weeks, months, years, possibly, long before the island. And when they arrive back at Monarch with the pictures and no proof of anything Monarch-y, they don't act any different, because nothing is different.)

* * *

She doesn't date in high school. Her mother worries, Mason knows she does, but none of the boys really appears to recognize that Mason is, in fact, a girl, and anyway, her father would never allow for her to date anyone. He's not even happy with friends, so a boyfriend would be way too much.

Then dad dies, and the discussion is done. Everything is done, that's what it feels like. Dad was everything, every conversation ruled by him, every minute under his control. His expectations, his beliefs, everything was him. 

Now he's not anymore. It feels like the world is ending. It feels like it's beginning. Mason has never been able to live up to her dad's expectations, and she's never been able to be herself, because there was no place for that in her father's tightly planned life. 

She wonders if there was ever a way to make him proud. She wonders whether she will ever know.

* * *

Monarch organizes Conrad a flat. It's small, clean and impersonal, but that's not a bad thing. Conrad is military at his core, no matter the fact that he's retired. And he doesn't have many things.

They offer her one, too, but she has her own place, and she'd rather not spend more time in Monarch owned places than necessary. And anyway, her flat is full of all sorts of keepsakes, photography equipment and general mess, and the idea of sorting through all of it is all sorts of daunting. 

She invites him over more often than either of them wants to admit. Nothing ever happens, even though she is fairly sure that everyone at Monarch has money in a betting pool on them. More often than she'd like to admit, he spends the night, sleeping on her couch or bed.

Usually, she's good at reigning in her nightmares. She doesn't want him to see. It's kind of stupid, given that he's barely left her sight in weeks, but he's never seen her break down. She'd done that after Skull Island, the day after she signed on for Monarch, when she'd woken up in her own bed and realized just what had happened in that terrible, beautiful place.

And then she'd pulled herself together, because 'no one wants to see your tears', as her dad used to say. She can be perfectly fine every day, and who cares if she doesn't sleep longer than a few hours when Conrad's not there? 

But tonight, tonight...

“Weaver.” Conrad's voice floats through hazy images of skull crawlers and giant snakes. She can't see him, can only see giant critters moving towards him.

“Weaver.” Conrad again, more firmly this time, but Packards there, too, staring at her with such wild eyes.

“Mason!” Hands on her shoulders, and Mason surges up. Just as she's sitting up, the images fade. She's home. In her own bed. Conrad is staring at her in the dim light of dawn. She looks away for a moment, not wanting to see the pity in his eyes, but figures that he's already seen her screaming at nothing, might as well go for it. 

“Are you okay?” He whispers. There is no pity in his eyes, only understanding. 

She throws her arms around him. He stiffens for a second, but then his arms go around her, too. He pulls her to his chest, and she feels his heart beat, fast but reassuringly steady. He holds her, for how long she cannot tell.

At some point, her breathing has slowed down enough for her to think clearly again, and she slowly moves away again. 

“I'm sorry I woke you.” She says, looking away. Suddenly, she's ashamed again. It's stupid, and it's annoying, and she kind of wants to laugh and cry at the same time. 

“Wasn't sleeping.” He says, voice gruff but affectionate. She looks up.

“You weren't?” She asks. He doesn't look as though he's been through sleepless nights. But then, he never looked anything but fine, even during the worst parts of the Island.

“You're not the only one with nightmares.” He admits. She doesn't think he'd tell that to anyone but her. She doesn't think he's _ever_ told anyone other than her. 

“Want to talk about it?” He asks, and she smiles.

* * *

Photography is not what her dad would have expected her to take. She's not sure what he would have expected her to do, except that he'd have expected her to be the best. Maybe this would make him proud then, Mason thinks as she sees one of her pictures on the cover of the National Geographic. 

Probably not, though. 

But she is proud. It's not a pretty picture, the burning village and the children running away from it, but it tells a story. It screams for attention, for discussion. That's more important. 

She considers telling her mother, but her mother wants her safe, most of all, and this isn't. There is nobody else to tell.

* * *

“We've organized you some military back-up.” Brooks says, one day. They've done their fare share of two men missions by then, worked for Monarch for months. They've barely spend a night apart since that first night with the nightmares, but neither Brooks nor Lin need to know that. 

“What do we need a military team for?” James asks, looking between Brooks and Lin. Neither of them look quite as green as they did back when they started, but they still look so much young that it's like a slap in the face when Mason reminds herself they're only two years younger than she is.

“It's an island. It could be... they were useful. Last time.” Brooks says. Lin takes his hand, and Mason is sympathetic, really, she is, but this is an important point. 

“Last time, Packard decided to start a war with everything on that island. Last time, the military back-up tried to kill everything!” She only notices that she's taken a step forward when James steps next to her. He doesn't touch her, but his presence is reassuring, nontheless.

“Which is why you're in charge, this time. Both of you.” Lin says, voice calm. She's always calm, which Mason likes, usually.

“And they're just going to accept that?” James asks, disbelief clear.

“They're going to have to.” Brooks says.

“A military contingent? They're not used to taking orders from retired people and civilians. They're not going to like it.” Mason says.

“We're making it clear from the start that this is what the situation is. And I believe that the two of you have most definitively the sort of personality that will make that work.” Lin smiles, a sharp little smile, and Mason remembers why she likes this woman. 

“You two aren't coming?” Mason asks. 

“Someone's got to hold down the fort until a new head of Monarch arrives.” Brooks says, the same thing he's been saying for months, now. 

“That new head ever coming?” Mason asks. At this point, she wouldn't be surprised if they weren't. She'd prefer it that way, truly. Brooks and Lin are inexperienced and green, but they're better than another Randa, or god help them, another Packard. 

“Probably not.” Lin says, and they share grins.

* * *

The first time she realizes that she will never be able to publish the pictures of Kong, shes not sure what to think. Sparking a discussion, showing new things to people at home, that's what's been important to her for so long, she doesn't know how not to do it.

But the truth is, she cannot allow the knowledge of this place to reach the outside world. She's seen Randa, she's seen Packard. She's seen so many men like them in Vietnam. She knows what humans are like. This world, this untouched place, it deserves better than that. Kong, the Iwi, everything here, all of it, they all deserve better.

That's why she doesn't object when Monarch wants all of it for their research, and their research only. That's why she doesn't sell the negatives, despite keeping them, hidden, because while she likes Brooks and Lin, she's seen too much of any military operation to trust the government. That's why she writes her mother and tells her of the nice, calm photography job she's found.

* * *

They find the abandoned island. They find more giant animals. They manage not to start a war with them, despite the new military contingents twitchy trigger fingers. 

James makes it clear that he's the boss, and that Mason is his second in command, civilian or not. She takes all the photos that will never be published, of the island, the animals, and even the soldiers, because you never know how many of them will make it home. 

On the last day on the island, when everyone is already preparing for extraction, Conrad pulls her away from the group, to a secluded spot where they can watch a group of giant butterflies. 

He kisses her, soft and slow, and she thinks that no matter what happens, no matter what has happened, this is where she's supposed to be.

**Author's Note:**

> The ending is weird, but my endings are always weird, so... yeah.


End file.
